“Savant Syndrome: Realities, Myths and Misconceptions”, 2014 ():
It was 126 years ago that Down first described savant syndrome as a specific condition and 70 years ago that Aner first described Early Infantile Autism. While as many as one in 10 autistic persons have savant abilities, such special skills occur in other CNS conditions as well such that approximately 50% of cases of savant syndrome have autism as the underlying developmental disability and 50% are associated with other disabilities. This paper sorts out realities from myths and misconceptions about both savant syndrome and autism spectrum disorders (ASD) that have developed through the years.
The reality is that low IQ is not necessarily an accompaniment of savant syndrome; in some cases IQ can be superior. Also, savants can be creative, rather than just duplicative, and the skills increase over time on a continuum from duplication, to improvisation to creation, rather than diminishing or suddenly disappearing. Genius and prodigy exist separate from savant syndrome and not all such highly gifted persons have Asperger’s Disorder.
This paper also emphasizes the critical importance of separating ‘autistic-like’ symptoms from ASD especially in children when the savant ability presents as hyperlexia (children who read early) or as Einstein syndrome (children who speak late), or have impaired vision (Blindisms) because prognosis and outcome are very different when that careful distinction is made. In those cases the term ‘outgrowing autism’ might be mistakenly applied when in fact the child did not have ASD in the first place.
…Compensatory learning, reinforcement and repetition-compulsion may also play a role, but then, if those dynamics produce savant syndrome, why wouldn’t that apply to all persons with autism or other CNS limitations?
The theory I favor is that what I have come to call the “three R’s” and reflects the process Kapur termed “paradoxical functional facilitation” in 1996 in which one area of the brain in released from the inhibiting influence of some other brain area. In the case of savants, both congenital and acquired, there is brain damage in one area, frequently the left hemisphere, with recruitment of still intact brain tissue in another area of the brain, rewiring of circuitry to that new area, and release of dormant capacity, through a disinhibiting process, of information and skills already stored in that newly recruited area.
…Adding to the improvisation skill now is creation and composing of entirely new pieces. One such song he calls “Down Home on the Farm in Arpin”, and another he names “Bird Song”. In that latter piece he duplicates, by whistling softly as he plays his new tune, the bird songs he hears as he sits for hours outside his farm home.
That same sequence from replication to improvisation to creation occurs in other savants whether musicians or artists. The artists begin their ‘career’ with striking replicas of what they have seen and stored, usually requiring no model or constant reference piece. Then some improvisation begins to appear—a telephone pole deleted here, or a new tree there—slightly different from the original. Then comes creation of entirely new pieces, maybe now freeform or in an entirely different art style.
So the savant can be creative. Some savants prefer to stay with replication, but many have gone beyond literal copying, as stunning as that can be, to improvisation and then creation of something entirely new.
These clinical impressions regarding creativity in the savant have been bolstered by several formal research projects. A 1987 study by et al 1987 looked at musical inventiveness in 5 musical savants compared to 6 non-savant children who had musical training over a period of 2 years but who had not been exposed to compositional or improvisational instruction. 5 tasks were used to grade for “musical inventiveness”. On those tests the savant group was superior to the control group. Similarly, on tests of musical competence—timing, balance and complexity—the savants (with a mean IQ of 59) were also superior to the control group.
et al 1989 conducted a study of improvisations by Leslie Lemke compared to a professional, non-savant musician after each had heard the same musical pieces, one lyric (Grieg) and one a-tonal (Bartok). Leslie’s improvisations were described as “virtuoso embellishments with a considerable degree of musical inventiveness and pianistic virtuosity.” That study concluded that “both subjects’ attempts at improvisation show a high degree of generative musical ability, and what distinguishes them from each other is not so much a differential degree of musicianship but rather their own, different musical preferences as well as their respective personality characteristics.” In improvisational style on the Bartok, atonal piece, both musicians resembled each other as well
[Extremely unconvincing. Recording birdsong is not particularly creative, and why would you compare savant children to ordinary children, or ‘creativity’ after a single listen? Creativity is a lifetime, not a minute. This is the sort of low bar that leads Treffert to deduce that savants must be tapping into “genetic memory”…]